Stick like glue: Elmer's piano-tuning business going strong after 57 years

By: Jessica Harvey, Herald Times Reporter

MANITOWOC — "Remember Elmer's glue, and the name will stick with you," John Elmer, 79, tells customers of the piano-tuning business he's stuck with for 57 years.

Elmer operates the business on his own, visiting the homes of about 500 customers who need their piano re-pitched or tuned. He even carries his case full of tools "plus a trunk full of parts" to all of the school districts and nearly half of the churches in Manitowoc County during the course of a year.

"There's a sense of accomplishment in making the piano an inspirational instrument," Elmer said. "When it's tuned you'll be inspired to play it, and you'll sit there much longer when it's in tune."

Elmer will turn 80 Saturday and has planned a large celebration at Lincoln Park … complete with a talent show, dancing, a piñata and 100 invites.

"I keep thinking about it, but I don't feel 80," he said. "I feel more like 50."

He intends to keep piano tuning for at least another 10 years, which wasn't always the plan.

His oldest son of seven children, Eddie, 54, had been training with his father for six months to take over the family business. Two weeks before he was scheduled to start work, Eddie suffered a stroke, which caused the left side of his body and his tongue to be paralyzed.

"It was two weeks before he was going to start the new year, 2005," Elmer said. "I would have been (working) alongside him for one year and then turn the business over to him but … here I am, still tuning."

Elmer bought Eddie his first guitar when he was 10 years old.

"He had great talent, a gifted ear, and he could listen to a song one time then play it back perfectly," Elmer said.

Before tuning training, Eddie had been a music programmer and announcer for three different radio stations in 35 years.

He and his father were in the middle of building their own piano from scratch before Eddie's stroke at age 51.
Elmer was first interested in the tuning field when he was working at the Mirro Aluminum Co. Shipping Department in Manitowoc. Co-workers were able to talk him into enrolling at the Conn Musical Instrument School in Elkhart, Ind.

Elmer later transferred to the Rockwell School of Piano Tuning in Clearfield, Pa., and received his certification on his 23rd birthday.

Once he graduated, he was contacted by the Army Draft Board during World War II. When he enlisted in the Air Force instead, he was told to leave that same afternoon. Elmer didn't even spend a full 24 hours home before he was sent to Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

"Something tells me that I would have never come back if I had enlisted in the Army," Elmer said.

He never entered a war zone while he served, instead he fixed instruments for the 626th Air Force Band that played backup for all musicians who performed for his base.

"Every week there was a different group of entertainers and I got, personally, to meet them and eat with them," Elmer said. "That was a wonderful time."

Lena Horne and Anita Bryan were just two of the famous singers Elmer met.

While music and pianos are Elmer's first love in life, he said dancing is his second. He has met two of three wives dancing, and looks forward to dancing at his birthday party.

"This will be my favorite birthday by far," he said. "Before it's just been an ordinary day so this is super special for me."

top of page